Arnold Genthe (1869-1942)

In 1895, Arnold Genthe accepted an offer to work as a tutor for an affluent German-American family in San Francisco. In between tutoring responsibilities, he taught himself photography and began publishing some of his photographs in local magazines. By 1901, he had already become one of the most sought-after portrait photographers on the West Coast. His award-winning photographic landscapes and pictures would soon bring both domestic and international recognition.

At
the age of nineteen, Arnold Genthe, an aspiring painter from a well-to-do
Berlin family of intellectuals sought the advice and commendation of one of the
most prominent nineteenth-century German painters and distant family relative—Adolf
Menzel (1815-1905). Upon reviewing young Arnold’s sketches, Menzel was polite,
but his remarks were nevertheless devastating and life-changing: "You have
some talent, but it would be advisable for you to follow in the footsteps of
your father and grandfather. You will paint, of course, but not for fame or
profit." The year was 1888. Genthe proceeded to enroll at the University
of Jena where he received a Doctorate in Classical Philology. In 1894 he
published his dissertation on the tenth-century codex of Lucan (De Lucani Codice Erlangensi) and
travelled to Paris for post-doctoral studies in French literature and art at
the Sorbonne.

In
1895 Genthe took an offer to work as a tutor for an affluent German-American
family and sailed along with them to San Francisco. In between tutoring
responsibilities, he taught himself photography and began publishing some of
his photographs in local magazines. In 1897, Genthe decided to stay in America
and explore his newly found passion for photography on a professional level. By
1901 he had already become one of the most sought-after portrait photographers
on the West Coast, whose award-winning photographic landscapes and pictures would
soon bring both domestic and international recognition.

The
“Genthe style” not only secured commissions for portraits and landscapes from
leading politicians, artists, and businessmen—from Theodore Roosevelt, William
Howard Taft, and Woodrow Wilson; to Jack London, Greta Garbo, Isadora Duncan, Anna
Pavlova, and Sarah Bernhardt; and John D. Rockefeller, Andrew Mellon, and J.P.
Morgan—but also greatly influenced the early artistic and professional
development of many twentieth-century social and documentary photographers,
including Dorothea Lange.[1]

Arnold Genthe, the son of Louise Zober Genthe (?-1896) and Dr. Hermann Genthe (ca.
1838-1886), came from a long line of renowned scholars, writers, philosophers,
and philologists, dating back to the sixteenth century.[2]
Some of his notable predecessors included his great uncle Karl Rosenkranz (1805-1879), who was a direct
disciple of Hegel and became the chair of Philosophy at the University of
Konigsberg (previously held by Kant). The religious works of his Swiss
granduncle, Heinrich Zschokke (1771-1848), were among Queen Victoria’s
favorites. His paternal grandfather, Friedrich Wilhelm Genthe was “the author
of some thirty books on philological and literary subjects.” His maternal
grandfather, Hugo Zober, was a government architect in Prussia, and Adolph
Menzel was his mother’s cousin. Arnold’s father was a professor of Latin and
Greek and the founder of the Wilhelm Gymnasium in Hamburg.

Before obtaining his Doctoral degree in Philology at the age of
twenty-five, Arnold Genthe himself had already published a unique study on
German slang (1892: Deutsches Slang: Eine Sammlung familiärer Ausdrücke und Redensarten), as well as on previously unstudied correspondence between Hegel and
Goethe (these appeared in the 1895 Goethe Jahrbuch).[3]

At
the time of Arnold’s birth, on January 8, 1869, in Berlin, his father held an
appointment as a professor of Latin and Greek at the Graues Kloster, Berlin. The
three Genthe brothers—Arnold, Siegfried (1871-1904), and Hugo (1873-1896)—received
superb classical educations and were greatly supported in the pursuit of any
topics and interests that they might have had: “The library was the most lived
room in the house. On its walls, reaching to the ceiling, and broken only by
the wide fireplace, were rows and rows of books. …From the time I was eleven
this room was the happiest retreat of my brothers and myself.”[4] As
the children advanced in their language proficiency,[5]
Dr. Hermann Genthe would take them on long walks along the banks of the Elbe
River and converse with them on various subjects in Latin, English, and French.
Later in life, before traveling to Japan, Mexico, and Greece, Arnold would
ensure that he had sufficient proficiency in the language in order to converse
with the local population.

Depending
on Hermann Genthe’s academic appointments the family moved continuously; they
last settled in Hamburg in 1880 when Arnold was eleven. It was in Hamburg—“a
free city [that] had retained its spiritual and political liberty through all
the centuries and its cosmopolitan independence of thought and liberality of
outlook”—where Arnold felt his “life began to take shape.”[6] Arnold’s
autobiographic reference to Hamburg as a free city that shaped his life and
personality is by no means a casual reminiscence; rather, it provides an early
glimpse into the deeply ingrained values and worldviews to which Arnold aspired
throughout his life. Indeed, aspirations for political, cultural, and religious
tolerance ran deeply in the Genthe tradition. Going as far back as the
sixteenth century, the first Gents, followers of Martin Luther, had fled
Holland during the times of Protestant reformation and religious persecution.
As will be discussed later on, Arnold’s own decision to settle in the United
States was informed by a similar aspiration to be in an environment that was
most conducive to unhindered freedom of thought and action.

Furthermore,
Arnold’s years in Hamburg were also formative in terms of his cosmopolitan
worldviews and deep interest in various cultures and art forms. Under the
influence of Professor Hans Lichtwark (1852-1914) and Dr. Justus Brinckmann
(1843-1915), Arnold developed a deep appreciation for museums, pictures, and natural
history, as well as for Japanese and Chinese art.[7] Lichtwark
and Brinckmann’s classes would become central to Arnold’s outlook, vision, and
understanding of the world because they

were voyages of discovery into our sensitiveness to beauty
and capacity for appreciation. We learned how to look at pictures, not from the
point of view of the instructor but through our own eyes according to our own
reaction.[8]

These
initial formative years and “voyages of discovery” were thus crucial for Arnold
Genthe’s personal and professional development and—as will be discussed later
on—provided the very basis for his bold vision and improbable, yet highly
successful career as a photographer in the United States. Arnold’s association
with Lichtwark in particular also greatly influenced his pursuit of photography
and approach to photographic subjects.

Despite the strong political aspirations, intellectual roots,
and scholarly tradition of the family, Arnold Genthe wanted to be a painter.
One of his first memories of painting was from the time he was seven and
experimenting with pencil, crayon, and watercolor. One day his mother saw him
drawing “something quite unintelligible” and asked what it was. Genthe
characterized his response as cubistic: “I don’t know yet whether it is going
to be a bureau or Grandma.”[9]
His mother encouraged his artistic aspirations, but in light of the strained
family finances (Dr. Hermann Genthe unexpectedly passed away when Arnold was
only seventeen) and Menzel’s authoritative assessment of his work, Arnold
decided to follow the scholarly tradition of his father and grandfather. In
1888, he obtained a scholarship to pursue a Doctorate in Philology at the
university in Jena.

Just
as in Hamburg, the years in Jena would significantly shape Genthe’s
philosophical outlook and orientation. During his university years, he was
consistently exposed to the philosophical tradition of the “mandarin” and the
ideas of the “new aristocracy of ‘cultivation’ (Bildung).”[10] Just
like the Chinese litarati, the status of the “mandarin intellectual” was based
on education, not privilege or wealth. Similarly, and particularly through his
work, Genthe would follow the “mandarin’s” philosophical orientation, meaning
that he would live by the principle that one

best serves humanity who cultivates his own spirit to the
fullest possible extent; for the world has no purpose and reality itself, no
meaning apart from the labor of the human mind and spirit. Compared to this
work, everything else …is insignificant.[11]

Not
coincidentally, in later years, strangers and acquaintances alike, would
describe Genthe as glamorous and aristocratic, a philosopher and a gentleman, not
because of wealth and business success, but precisely because of his manner of
speech, poise, and intellectual bearing. Throughout his time in Jena, Arnold
was similarly influenced by the high tradition of German aesthetics—and
particularly Hegel’s theories on the power of beauty to reconcile matter and
spirit.[12]
This influence would strongly inform his association with pictoral photography
and, as will be discussed further below, would lead to the bold introduction of
a new photographic style—the “Genthe style.” Moreover, in Jena Arnold also
pursued his previously developed interest in anthropology and the natural world
and studies Darwin’s theories with the renowned biologist and naturalist Ernst
Haeckel (1834-1919). He credits Haeckel for a “lesson which was to be of
significance in later years.” According to Genthe, Haeckel “never tired of
impressing his pupils with the necessity of training the eye so that it would
really see things.”[13] With
Haeckel’s teachings in mind, Genthe would repeatedly argue for the importance
of training the eye and introduce the simple, but powerful concept that “the
camera teaches us how to see.”

Under
the early influence of Brinckmann and Haeckel, Genthe would undertake many
field trips throughout his life and engage in the study and photography of native customs and ancient traditions of various populations in different parts
of the world. His sensitivity and openness to understanding other cultures
would grant him access to reclusive and remote areas where no foreigners would
typically be allowed. For example, his photographs of the Ainu population on
the island of Hokkaido in 1908 are among the few comprehensive visual records
of the Ainu available today. Although painting did not become his calling, it still
remained his passion throughout his student years. During a year of exchange
studies in Berlin, Arnold met with Menzel every week and often accompanied him
on his sketching trips. Arguably, it was during this time when Arnold was
exposed first hand to Menzel’s technique and outlook—both of which he would
closely replicate in his own photographic work. Upon graduating, Arnold also
pursued post-doctoral studies at the Sorbonne and, according to his
autobiography, devoted several months to the study of Chinese and Japanese art
treasures in the museums of Paris, London, and Berlin. Although not referenced
in his autobiography, Jena was important in yet another way for Genthe’s future
venture in the business of photography. From the very beginning, even when
still a novice, with no prior experience and meager income, Genthe opted to
purchase equipment using none other than the Jena-made photographic lens of Carl
Zeiss.

A
year after completing his studies in Jena and Paris, Arnold sailed to America
in 1895, initially as a tutor for the ten-year-old son of Baron and Baroness J.
Henrich von Schroeder. Baron von Schroeder had approached Arnold following the recommendation
of his bothers who knew Arnold from the Wilhelm Gymnasium.[14] The
twenty-six-year-old Arnold saw the offer as a propitious opportunity to
postpone an immanent academic career life in Germany and a chance to experience
the freedom “to pursue my way without being involved in things which were
foreign to my nature.”[15] He
left Germany with one suitcase, excited to experience, but with no intentions
to settle in America. However, by 1897, when his tutoring job was about to end,
his strongest connection to Germany—his family—had been profoundly severed. Both
his mother and younger brother had passed away in the previous year (Hugo was
trampled by an elephant while on assignment in Mozambique). His sole remaining
close family member—Siegfried—was also away from Germany, working for the Cologne Gazette in the Middle East and
Africa. With his family ties severed, Arnold’s choice was relatively easy:

I began to see clearly that teaching would never bring me
the happiness I wanted. It was here I belonged, in this new country which had
broadened my horizons, opened my eyes to a new conception of life and shown me
a way to satisfy my desire for beauty. Having absorbed something of the
American spirit of independence, I made my decision according to my own lights.
I took the first step on my career as a portrait photographer. I started in
search of a studio.[16]

Clearly
enamored with the freedom and independence of San Francisco and America, Genthe
not only decided to make his living in the new world, but would also not return
to Germany after 1904.[17] Yet,
he never separated from his German roots. Indeed, Herr Doctor, as his friends
called him, considered himself San Franciscan, and was repeatedly listed in the
San Francisco prestigious social register Our
Society Blue Book, as well as in Men
of the State of California. Yet, he did not change his nationality while
residing in San Francisco but waited until 1918—long after he had moved to New
York and after spending more than thirty years in the United States.[18]

When
the twenty-eight-year-old German scholar decided to support himself as a
professional portrait photographer, he had no prior credentials or formal
training in either photography or business ventures. Yet, his pictures—the
embodiment of his upbringing and artistic vision—brought in an immediate
success and following. Herr Doctor was regarded not only as “genius but a
wizard, his photography most weird and magical”
and, his studio—“a most unusual place—a little, genial museum of art
presided over by a philosopher and a friend of ideas.”[19]

Judging
from the quote above, it is easy to see how (despite Arnold Genthe’s prolific
and immensely profitable career as a portrait photographer) very few of his
contemporaries described him as a businessman. The various commentaries and writings
about Arnold Genthe throughout the past century also focus exclusively on the
artistic merits of his work and give little credence to his entrepreneurial
skills and ability to sustain a successful career for over thirty years.
Certainly the reason for such gap might be found in Genthe’s own predisposition
to the subject. As he wrote:

Photography has never been for me a means of getting rich
quick—or even slowly. Money has not meant enough for me to make a systematic
effort to accumulate it. Making a picture has always interested me more than
exploiting it…. appreciations of my work are of greater value and significance
to me than gold medals and large checks.[20]

Yet,
his unprecedented ability to “turn photography into an art with a business
basis”[21] arguably
hinged on a unique business strategy that underscored not only Genthe’s skills
as a photographer, but also his thorough understanding of the opportunities and
market potential in the business of photography. Some background information on
San Francisco and photography at the fin de siècle can explicate the point.

The
San Francisco to which Genthe arrived in 1895 was the virtually unchallenged
economic and financial capital of the Pacific Slope, controlling economic trade
not only in the local Bay Area, but also the coastal trade from Panama to
Alaska.[22]
In addition to trade and finance, the city “had more manufacturing
establishments, more employees in workshops, greater capitalization, larger
value of materials, and higher value of products than all the other twenty-four
western cities combined.”[23]
The rapid growth of the city similarly reflected this great economic boom: the
population of San Francisco jumped from 57,000 in 1860 to over 340,000 by 1890,
making it the eighth largest city in the United States (See Table 1 San Francisco
1890-1910. Population census and registered photographers).[24]

San
Francisco’s professional photographers were mainly engaged in family
portraiture and landscape photography commissioned by state institutions. There
were seemingly few barriers to entry in a budding new field: with the Kodak
revolution (to be described further below), handheld cameras were increasingly
affordable and amateurs were in style. The first Kodak camera (1888) was priced
at $25 (approximately $714 in 2012),[25] a
studio rent in San Francisco (1897) was also approximately $25, and membership
in the local Camera Club provided additional access to photographic materials,
literature, and equipment for picture developing. [26]

Yet,
despite the relatively low upfront capital investment necessary and the
relatively low competition, professional portrait photography in the late
nineteenth and early twentieth century appeared to be an extremely challenging
and impenetrable business. According to San Francisco’s statistical data, while
between 1890 and 1900 the city population increased by over 40,000 people, the
number of professional photographers increased by only 21 (from 53 in 1890 to
74 in 1900); in the following decade, particularly after the 1906 earthquake,
the number of photographers fell below the 1890 levels (34 in 1906 and 51 in
1907).

Table 1. San Francisco 1890-1910. Population census and registered photographers

Confirming
the notion of impenetrability, both at the start of his career in San Francisco
in 1897 and after moving to New York in 1911, Genthe received dire predictions
that he would not last in the business. Only within a few minutes of glancing
through Genthe’s photographs, the leading portrait photographer in San
Francisco declared authoritatively: “Well, they may be art, but you will never
be able to sell them. Take it from me, I’ve been in business here for twenty
years and I know what I am talking about.”[30]
Similarly, when moving to New York, his studio landlord was the first to warn
him: “You won’t last a year. A photographer had the place for six months and he
had to give it up because he could not make a go of it.”[31]
Indeed, as will be discussed in some detail below, others before him, had
received critical acclaim and raving reviews, but had been unsuccessful at turning
a profit. Genthe’s conviction that there was a market for his innovative and
daring work might have appeared to be the daydreaming of a novice. Yet, what
could have been interpreted as the whimsical decision of a philology scholar
enamored with the freedom and beauty of San Francisco was, in fact, a well-calculated
and propitiously timed business decision. Genthe’s market entry in 1897
benefitted from two very significant turns in the field of photography that
impacted both consumer audiences and photographers: i) unprecedented advances
in technology (both picture taking and negative processing) and ii) the birth
of an artistic movement that sought to establish photography as art. Each is
briefly described below.

The first successful photographs, known as daguerreotypes,
are attributed to the French innovator Louis J. M. Daguerre, who made his
prototype public in 1893. Soon after,
daguerreotype portraiture-making would become the staple item of those engaged
in the photography profession. Only within the first fifteen years of
Daguerre’s invention, there were more than thirty million daguerreotype
portraits taken in the United States.[32]

Among
the first, most avid consumers of daguerreotype portraits in California were
the miners—a picture was a memento that could transcend the physical boundaries
of separation and re-establish a sense of connectedness with families and loved
ones. With a vast new consumer audience, photography held little or no appeal
as a form of artistic expression, but became immediately popular as a
commercial enterprise. The expansive Western territories, and the beautiful
vistas of San Francisco in particular, held special appeal and drew in many
practitioners of daguerreotyping from the East Coast. Genthe’s description of
the San Francisco fog perhaps most poignantly captures the type of appeal that
the San Francisco landscape held for so many photographers:

The San Francisco fog has never been sufficiently glorified.
…The fogs [in San Francisco] are pure sea water condensed by the clean hot
breath of the interior valleys and blown across the peninsula by the trade
winds. They come in, not an enveloping blanket but a luminous drift, conferring
a magic patina on the most common-place structures, giving them and air of age
and mystery.[33]

Only
few daguerreotypists, however, succeeded in establishing and running a
long-lasting business—either as landscape or portraiture photographers; most
would take on alternative occupations within a year of arrival.[34]

The
combination of critical acclaim with poor business outcomes of one of Genthe’s
early predecessors—Robert Vance (1825-1876)—is instructive of the difficulties
in launching a successful photography business venture. Vance travelled to
California during the Gold Rush years and set up a daguerreotype studio in San
Francisco. In 1851, betting on the East Coast’s thirst for West Coast views,
Vance travelled to New York and staged an unparalleled exhibit of daguerreotype
views of California. Ostensibly, the exhibit was the earliest large showing of
this kind in the United States and the world.[35]
Nevertheless, despite the rave reviews from both critics and the general
public, Vance could not generate a profit: there was much praise, but no
private buyers. Vance was only able to sell the entire collection for $1,500 (real
price[36]
in 2012 of approximately $46,000) a year later (the total price of the venture
was $3,700, or $115,000 in 2012
real price value).[37]

Two
trends that marked Vance’s career highlight the intricacies of the business of
photography. First, the variable success of Vance’s marketing strategies and
the great divide between appraisal and profit-generating opportunities
highlight the critical need for proper market and consumer audience
positioning. Second, there was the tension between the artistic vision and the
commercial appeal. Although Vance would call himself an artist, his main
profit-generating platform was commercial lithography print-making houses that
could reproduce his prints. The latter however were interested in daguerreotype
images only to the extent that they responded to the new demand for realism
rather than “fanciful views.”[38]
In order to be commercially viable, the daguerreotype had to be realistic, not
artistic. Challenged from all corners, photography at the time was simply “looked
upon as the bastard of science and art, hampered and held back by the one,
denied and ridiculed by the other.”[39]
Those who would engage with it were often perceived as peddlers and charlatans.

Arguably,
the charge against the artistic qualities of early photography had some merit.
The daguerreotype, although exquisite in
its ability to capture an image, had numerous drawbacks: it required extensive
light, the exposure needed to last 15-20 minutes, thus contributing to the
lifeless quality of the portraits and scenes, and most importantly from an
industrial perspective—there was no possibility for reproduction as there was
no negative, only an original type.[40]
In 1839, improving on Daguerre’s invention, Samuel F.B. Morse and John W.
Draper introduced a technique that allowed a picture to be taken in two,
instead of twenty minutes. According to Genthe, Morse and Draper’s work in New
York marks the beginning of photographic portraits, as their discovery would
vastly diminish the need for “posing.”[41]
By the late 1880s, using advances in chemistry, physics, and technology,
scientists and innovators in both Europe and the United States were able to
gradually improve and replace the 1839 discoveries (See Table 2: Stages in
Photography Product Technology).

Market-oriented Anthony Company takes the lead in
production of photographic supplies for professional photographers; emphasis on
chemicals and treated paper

1880-1895

Dry gelatin on glass plates

Gelatin allowed for the
factory mass production of basic negative material; new companies, including Eastman enter the market

1895-1909

Gelatin on celluloid roll film

Amateur photographer
market; expansion of the market for both durable and consumable goods fostering
the emergence of large-scale corporate enterprise; the Eastman Kodak Company takes the lead; by the early twentieth
century it is transformed into a multinational firm

1909-1925

Cinematographic film

Innovation comes outside
the traditional leadership, but sustainability depends on the reliable supply
of quality photosensitive film where Eastman Kodak has dominance

Source: Images and Enterprise, Jenkins [1987]

Most
significantly, in the 1880s, George Eastman introduced a celluloid roll
film-equipped hand camera called Kodak. As Kodak’s advertising slogan declared—“You press the button, we do the rest”—Eastman’s
factory would develop the photos for its customers and reload the camera with
another roll of film.[43]

Photography—both
as a pastime and as a highly lucrative new industry—had entered a new era and
the Eastman company succeeded in creating a mass amateur market both at home
and abroad.[44]
Within a few years, numerous firms flooded the market and sought to respond to
Eastman’s challenge. The intense industry competition resulted not only in
vastly improved methods for picture taking and processing, but also—mainly
through the introduction of handheld cameras—made photography a most affordable
activity for amateurs (See Table 3: Growth of Eastman Kodak and the
Photographic Industry 1889 - 1909). To many such amateurs who would become
leading professionals, “the lure of photography was its promise to wed the
older ideals of art with the newer realities of science and industry.”[45]

In
addition to the technological advancements that opened the field of photography
to amateurs; the photography-as-art movement was given a powerful push by many
leading intellectuals. The proponents of photography-as-art (known as pictoralists)
argued against the commonly held perception that photography is a mechanical
process and the photographer merely an operator of a machine. As with art,
pictoral photographers claimed to be guided by the principles of composition,
lighting, observation and feeling. And, as one of the European scholar and
photographer, P.H. Emerson, wrote:

The originality of a work of art refers to the originality
of the thing expressed and the way it is expressed, whether it be in poetry,
photography, or painting. That one technique is more difficult than another to
learn no one will deny; but the greatest thoughts have been expressed by means
of the simplest technique, writing.[47]

Among
the most active proponents of this new era of photography was one of Arnold Genthe’s
teachers, Alfred Lichtwark. As director of the Hamburg Kunsthalle, Lichtwark was
an avid promoter of amateur photography and strong believer that the best
pictographic work is done by amateurs. In 1893 he organized the “First
International Exhibition of Amateur Photographs” in Germany and established the
Hamburg Society of Photo Amateurs. Through both venues he sought to promote the
ideology of pictoral photography.[48]
Although Genthe makes no reference to Lichtwark’s influence on his decision to turn
to photography, the impact of Lichtwark is clearly visible in Genthe’s
influential essay on photography “Rebellion in Photography” written in 1901, in
which, similar to Lichtwark, he advocated for a new type of photography to be
championed by amateurs with prior artistic training. In Genthe’s understanding,
through “the absolute independence and iconoclastic energy of some enthusiastic
amateur photographers, men and women, a fundamental change has been brought
about in professional portrait photography.” Some of the important features of
this new photography necessitated that the new breed of photographers take
advantage of the technological improvements in photography; acquire
understanding of the artistic principles as related to photography and chemistry,
and—most importantly—“ruthlessly discard the cherished artistic traditions of
the old-time photographer.”[49]

The
leading champion of photography-as-art in the United States, Alfred Stieglitz,
pursued a strategy similar to Lichtwark’s and Genthe’s. Born in the US,
Stieglitz’s parents decided to travel back to Germany and enrolled their five
children in German schools. Upon graduating from Realgymnasium in Karlsruhe, Alfred initially intended
to study engineering, but instead turned to the study of photography under the
guidance of the renowned chemist H.W. Vogel. Incidentally, the training in
chemistry did not go to waste. It allowed Stiegltiz to develop superb knowledge
of the photographic process—both picture-taking and picture-developing—a
knowledge that was essential for promoting the cause of photography-as-art. Thus,
immediately upon his return to New York in 1890, Stieglitz became an outspoken
promoter of amateur photography, writing essays, delivering speeches and
distributing pamphlets. He became the editor of the American Amateur Photographer in 1893 and later on established two
of the most influential publications in the field of photography—Camera Notes and Camera Work. In 1902 Stieglitz organized a national photography
exhibit called “The Photo-Secession”—the name was indicative of the advent of a
new style in photography and the photographers’ revolt against old techniques
and lack of artistic expression.[50]
In 1905, Stieglitz opened the Little Galleries at 291 Fifth Avenue where he
exhibited experimental work by photographers, painters, and sculptors from both
Europe and the United States.

The
rebellion that intellectuals such as Lichtwark, Stieglitz, and Genthe advocated
for, sought to establish photography’s potency as art, as a medium equally
powerful in expressing artistic inspiration and creating aesthetic vision.
However, the uphill battle in positioning photography as art had not only
artistic-aesthetic, but also legal-juridical and business dimensions.
Daguerreotypes, cartes des visites, and cabinet cards were in high demand
because they were regarded as images that are close representations of the
truth; they were not appraised on the basis of their artistic potential. Even
in the twentieth century, alluding to the fact that the lens (in French
“objectif”) is the basis of photography, the film critic Andre Bazin would most
famously synthesize a popular view that “the originality in photography as
distinct from originality in painting lies in the essentially objective
character of photography.”[51]
Unsurprisingly, beyond their function as family mementos, photographic images
very quickly began to replace drawings and sketches and became widely utilized
in the judicial and criminal systems. In other words, they became a requisite
component of institutional control and were closely associated with factual
evidence and confirmation of an existing truth.[52]
For the better part of the nineteenth century, because they were regarded as a
representation of independently existing reality and not a product of artistic
imagination, photographs were also not included in copyright laws—neither in
the United States nor Europe. Anyone could reproduce a photograph in as many
copies as they wished—just as, most famously, was the case of the Burrow-Giles
Lithographic Company that in 1884 reproduced 85,000 copies of a photograph of
Oscar Wilde (known as Oscar Wilde No. 18).

Napoleon
Sarony, the photographer who took Oscar Wilde’s picture, determined that he had
not received adequate compensation for the massive reproduction and took his plea
to court. It was the well-known Burrow-Giles Lithographic Company v. Sarony 111
U.S. 53 (1884) case that instituted the first of series of decrees on
photography copyrights. The main criteria that could qualify a photograph for
copyright protection was that “staging” was involved since the latter “can be
considered an original work of art, the product of the author’s intellectual
invention.”[53]
With the means of reproduction rapidly expanding at the end of the nineteenth
century, it was artistic quality (formally understood as staging and
composition) that legally entitled a photograph to copyright protection and
afforded photographers means to receive compensation for their work. Less than
two decades after the Sarony Case, it would be Genthe’s innovative dis-use of
staging that would secure his place as the King of Portrait on the West Coast.

In
addition to directly influencing Genthe’s decision to turn to photography, the
aforementioned developments primed the upper-middle class to seek a different
type of photographic product. Most propitiously for Genthe, the emphasis on
work done by amateur rather than professional photographers, meant that his
prior lack of credentials in the industry was in fact one of his strongest
advantages. Around the time of publishing his “Rebellion in Photography” in
1901, Genthe branded himself as the harbinger of a new style that captured both
the technological advancements and artistic aspirations of the new photographic
era. His entry into the business world of photography was thus the entry of the
rebel who was prepared to overturn the established conventions and take his
followers onto a journey that captured the beauty and soul of both places and
people.

In
targeting his competition, Genthe was authoritative and unsparing: he qualified
the work of the traditional photographer as “crude and false, preserving all the
undesirable methods of the past.”[54]
He also vividly described the method of staging and composition that
traditional photographers would use. In their hands, the sitter-victim was:

put in front of the background of his choice and “posed”—that
is, he is twisted into one of the twelve standard poses – more or less
theatrical and grotesque—which the operator had in stock, and his head being
securely fastened in a vise (head-rest), that makes any motion impossible, is
told to look at a small picture (eye-rest)…. the resulting picture, though
perhaps something of a likeness, must necessarily be devoid of any individual
expression, and cannot claim any artistic merit.[55]

This,
in Genthe’s opinion was not what photography could produce or what the general
public would want to see:

The commercial photographers claim that the public demands
such pictures. Well, the public may accept them as long as they don’t get
anything better, but since the experiment has been made it was found that they
do accept pictures that vastly differ from what the regular photographer used
to give them.[56]

Using
a different technique, “discarding all the sacred rules of the photographic
tradition” Genthe launched a new product, and enacted a major transformation in
the field of photography. His innovative technique—what would become known as the
“Genthe style”—remained the distinguishing trademark of a most prolific and
prominent career, spanning over three decades. And perhaps the greatest
testimony to the appeal of Genthe’s product is the number of people he
photographed even in the first few years of his career: only his pre-1906
registry shows a registered clientele of over 8,000 people, and by 1911 he had
made well over 10,000 portraits. By the end of his life, his clientele and production
most probably exceeded 100,000 portraits and photographs.[57]

Four
distinct features marked his entrepreneurial approach to the business of
photography:

the offer of a new, innovative product and branding of a
unique style

reliance on technological innovations, particularly the
introduction of color photography

marketing exclusively through gallery exhibitions,
articles and publications, and

development of and reliance on extensive network of
social and professional contacts

Driven
by the constant quest to capture and record beauty, “to show the extraordinary
coloring and radiant spirit that emanate from both people and landscapes,”
Genthe developed a simple, but ingenious technique that he would use throughout
his career. As he describes it in his autobiography: “Discarding all the sacred
rules of photographic tradition, I had prescribed for myself a principle which
I have religiously adhered to these many years: never to permit the sitter to
be conscious of the exact moment when the picture is being taken, be it in the
studio or out of doors.”[58]
Propitiously, this snapshot technique greatly benefitted from the technological
revolution in camera production: the portable camera in particular allowed
Genthe to perfect his “candid camera” approach. And, as Will Irwin aptly
described Genthe’s skill and product:

Whatever Genthe’s general rank among the great photographers
of the world, in one thing he always stood preeminent—the snapshot. He could
take a bit of action at a street corner… and transform it into a genre work
like the canvas of a Flemish master.[59]

Genthe
was largely inspired in developing this method of picture-taking during his
early days as an amateur photographer, while attempting to capture the
picturesque and unique environment and residents of the San Francisco
Chinatown. As most of the residents were unwilling to be photographed by a
strange, six-foot-tall white man, Genthe had to resort to the use of a small camera
that he could hide in his pocket. He had to then “only” patiently wait for the
lighting and composition to naturally appear in front of him:

Again and again I went [to Chinatown] until I became a
familiar figure on its streets. Many days I stood for hours at a corner or sat
in some wretched courtyard, immobile and apparently disinterested, as I waited,
eager and alert, for the sun to filter through the shadows of for some
picturesque group of character to appear.[60]

Gradually,
Herr Doctor became quite successful at capturing images of the Chinatown
residents in their undisturbed, naturally flowing, everyday daily lives. His
work in Chinatown perfected his skills, allowed him to become knowledgeable of
the various effects of light and shadows on photographic composition, to
explore the connection between people’s unobstructed movement and the beauty of
their character, and it ultimately elevated him to the position of “the first
professional photographer to give people portraits that were more than mere
surface records—pictures…that showed something of the real character and
personality of the sitter.”[61]
As Jack Tchen would comment on the Chinatownseries, Genthe’s photographs “allow
us to gain glimpses of the radiant soul of [the Chinatown] residents.”[62]

Genthe’s
rebellion and unequivocal introduction of the art of portrait photography,
allowed him to capture and captivate an audience that not only admired,
but—more than anything—was most enthusiastic to acquire Genthe’s high-end
product. Although there is no systematic information on the prices he charged
and commissions he made,[63]
glimpses of evidence suggest that clients, such as President Wilson, had good
reasons to characterize Genthe’s prices as “unconscionable.”[64]
Indeed, various records confirm that the cost of Genthe’s photographs were high,
even by today’s standards. In 1915, Genthe would charge the future Mrs. Wilson
a “special rate” of $65 for ten photographs.[65]
Earlier, at the dawn of the new century, in a San Francisco where the average
annual wage of a worker was $525,[66]
Genthe’s professional rate was $9 for a dozen small photographs; and $15 for a
dozen enlarged photographs.[67] Genthe
did not adjust his rates even during times of war. In 1941, he sold a set of
pictures from his Greece travels for $500, the equivalent of almost $14,000
today.[68] (See
Table 4 for 2012 real price, real value, and
income value[69]
comparisons).

Table 4. Sample of Genthe's unconscionable prices - 2012 values

Year

Price

2012 Real Price

2012 Real Value

2012 Income Value

1901

$9

$251

$585

$1,610

1901

$15

$418

$975

$2,680

1909

$30

$781

$190

$4,310

1915

$65

$1,530

$3,060

$8,650

1922

$75

$1,030

$2,270

$5,750

1941

$500

$6,070

$13,800

$26,000

Certainly,
during a career that spanned over three decades, the Genthe style would invoke
different initial reactions among those who commissioned and saw Genthe’s
work. For example, President Wilson’s reaction to the portraits of Edith
Bolling Galt provide one of the most passionate testimonies to the effect of
Genthe’s images:

I had to hold myself tight while I was looking at those
pictures. I was so carried away with delight that there were photographs from which your beautiful face could speak to me in all the long hours of our
exile from one another that I could hardly refrain from taking you then and
there in my arms… and expressing my emotion in the only way that it could be
adequately expressed.[70]

Yet,
the Genthe style was not to everyone’s taste. Perhaps an early indicator that
his method and technique would eventually lose their appeal,[71]
John D. Rockefeller was initially puzzled by Genthe’s pictures of the
Rockefeller garden estates he had commissioned: As Genthe recollects, Rockefeller’s,
initial response was: “I don’t know whether I like them or not. They are not
clear. I feel when I look at them as if I need to wipe my glasses.”[72]
Even Genthe’s explanation of his method: to bring out the beauty of the place
by showing “the relation of the sculptures to their surroundings and with a
view to the light and shadow” would not convince Mr. Rockefeller of the
quality. It was only later, when the work was completed that Genthe received
the greatest compliment ever paid to his work: “I wanted you to know,”
Rockefeller told Genthe, “that I have learned many new beauties of my garden
through your pictures.”[73]
Genthe’s camera had taught Rockefeller how to see the beauty of his own home.

The
combination of technological advancement and aesthetic values allowed Genthe to
become one of the pioneer photographers that would rescue photography from five
decades of commercialization where “peddlers and charlatans had gotten hold of
the new technology and turned it into profit”[74]
and was thus instrumental in establishing a place for photography in the world
of arts while also tapping into the aesthetic sensibilities of the middle and upper
class. More than that, the Genthe style synthesized distinct trends that were previously
perceived as quite incompatible in the world of photography: the King of
Portrait succeeded in delivering a final product that, on the one hand,
integrated and relied on the latest technological advances and innovations
(i.e. an embrace of industrialization and progress), and, on the other, as in a
most complex work of art, captured something of the soul of the sitter or the
spirit of a place. In this way, by integrating technology, business, and art,
Genthe was able to introduce a groundbreaking product that established a new
way of both representing and looking.

Significantly,
this double-merger of technological innovation and aesthetic values in the art
of photography catapulted Genthe twice to the lead of professional photography:
first, at the dawn of the twentieth century, when he captured the San Francisco
high-end market with the introduction of the soft-touch, candid photography.
And, second, in 1911 when, in moving to New York, Genthe pioneered the use of
color photography on a commercial level. While in 1898 his initial clientele
came mainly from the ranks of the wealthy society women of San Francisco, by
1911, his mastery of color technology, combined with his signature style,
instantly brought commissions from top industrialists such as J.P. Morgan and Rockefeller and prominent political figures, including three consecutive US
presidents—Theodore Roosevelt, Taft, and Wilson.

For
a twenty-first century observer whose life is inadvertently saturated with
images in color, it is impossible to imagine a world where photographic images
were limited to the reproductions of colors only through various shades of
black and white. But for San Franciscans of the first decade of the twentieth
century, color photography brought in a paradigm shift equated with nothing
less than man’s ability to fly. To state it differently, the invention of color
photography was as exciting, revolutionary, and groundbreaking as the invention
of the airplane. As one journalist reported in the San Francisco Examiner:

Two events there were, both of which brought Society to the
verge of enthusiasm, and both were strictly within the field of applied Science.
…In the first week we saw Mr. Paulhan demonstrate the possibilities of the
aeroplane. It was the first local proof we have had of the astonishing fact
that man has conquered the air. Later we all went to see another scientific
achievement in its consummation. This was the exhibition of [sic] Dr. Genthe of which we have so
often read about but never much believed in—the photographic of nature in her
original colors.[75]

For
photographers as well, color photography meant a whole new way of approaching
and seeing the world, overcoming their prior techniques and retraining their
eye. As Genthe himself would comment: “the photographer whose eye has been
trained to see the hues of nature in monochrome will find it difficult, when he
tackles color photography, to see subjects as color compositions.”[76]
That Genthe created such a stir with his exhibit underscores the extent to
which the rigor of his early academic training in Germany allowed him to
sustain both his interest and capacity to master and perfect the use of the
latest technological innovations. A number of factors also point to Genthe’s
near monopoly over color photography in the first decade of the twentieth
century. Certainly, as Will Irwin succinctly pointed out, “with the heart of a
painter [Genthe] longed for color”[77]
and had the necessary artistic training to see subjects as color compositions.
More than that, and, as Quitslund suggests, Genthe’s interest in color stemmed
not only from his artistic inclinations, but also from his theoretical
exploration of the subject and his previous studies of Goethe’s theory of
color.[78]
And, as with his early work, Genthe’s path to offering a breakthrough product
integrated his unique approach to marketing and networking. Although he was not
the first to introduce the American audiences to autochrome color photographs, Genthe
was the first to perfect the process and launch the new invention on a
commercial scale. [79]
As the society reporters noted, Genthe’s autochromes “finally reduced
photography in colors not merely to an exact art, but to an art with a business
basis.”[80]
Indeed, as the leading autochrome color photographer, by 1909 Genthe would
already charge $30 per plate for portraits.[81]
By 1910, when Genthe took his autochrome plates to New York, the newspapers
would identify him as “the color photographer;”[82]
and the Evening Post declared that
Genthe’s work “elicited from other experiments in color photography a most
cordial acknowledgement that he has not only surpassed them but has transcended
what they considered the possibilities of the art.”[83]

His
cutting-edge mastery would also allow him to smoothly transition from San
Francisco to New York and bring his photography work to a new level: beyond
portraits, he would receive large commissions from the leading politicians and
businessmen of the day; and his groundbreaking work in color photography would
be featured in a number of magazines, vying to be among the first to publish
color photographs. According to
Genthe, his picture of a rainbow over the Grand Canyon, reproduced in Collier’s in 1912 as well as a number of
portraits and landscapes featured in the American
Magazine, are the first color photographs to appear in American
publications. Soon after, Town and
Country, Forum, and Delineator would follow suit and
reproduce his autochrome plates.[84]

In
establishing his brand name, Genthe relied on a technique quite unlike the main
marketing strategies of the day. Instead of paying for commercial
advertisements, Genthe popularized his work in a way befitting an academic
scholar, not a business entrepreneur: Herr Doctor established his name
primarily through the publication of essays and critical reviews on photography
exhibits in San Francisco and overseas. More than direct revenue-generating
activity, his articles and reviews allowed him to showcase his expertise and
sophisticated understanding of art and photography. Only within the first five
years of his career, he had over ten publications in leading local journals and
magazines on various subjects pertaining to photography (See Sampling of
publications in the United States, Table 5). His writing style and critical
assessments were those of a person with an expert eye and superb technical
skills—not of a novice who had just entered the profession. Genthe’s critical
appraisal of photographic work and prolific advice on photography techniques
and venues for exploration considerably enhanced his brand name and reputation.
At the same time, as early as 1901, his own work gained substantial critical
acclaim and soon after his work won major prizes at various exhibits.

“What various prominent critics
have to say of the second San Francisco Photographic Salon Just Passed” Camera Craft 4 (February 1902): 169-171.

Old Chinatown: A Book of Pictures by Arnold Genthe with Text by Will Irwin. (New
York: Moffat, Yard & Co, 1908).

At
the first photographic salon at the Hopkins Institute of Art in 1901 Genthe won
the Grand Prize for Best Individual Display and First Prize in portraiture for “Study,
Head and Hand.”[86]
In 1902 he won the grand prize for the best collection at the first Los Angeles
salon. In 1903 his reputation and authoritative view brought him the
Chairmanship of the selection (the Hanging) Committee for the Third Salon in
San Francisco. At the start of his career, Genthe had thus succeeded in
marketing his product not as a commercial item, but as a sophisticated piece of
art, produced in the hands of the most innovative and knowledgeable
photographer that the West Coast could have. In later years, Genthe continued
publicizing his work primarily through books and articles (or photographic
essays). This strategy was essential, particularly upon his relocation to New
York, as it allowed him to penetrate the far more competitive and unforgiving
New York market.

Similar
to many leading twentieth-century photographers, Genthe aspired to establish
photography as an artistic genre and shunned commercial photography for its
crude methods and representation. Yet, Genthe also understood and perfected the
art of networking, and was a strong proponent of business sponsorship for the
arts. Along with Alfred Stieglitz, Genthe realized that photography’s entry
into the circle of fine art is in many ways contingent on the appreciation and
sponsorship of photography by wealthy donors. Thus, and although not directly
related to his own life, Genthe devotes a few pages in his autobiography
retelling stories of business sponsorship for the arts, including Stieglitz’s
attempts to convince J.P. Morgan to display portrait photographs at the Fine
Arts Section at the Met, and Paris Singer’s long-lasting sponsorship of Isadora
Duncan and her dancers.

In
San Francisco—a city where the business elite was indelible part of affairs of
the state and its cultural developments—Genthe himself would become quite
versed and would benefit greatly from the patronage and sponsorship borne
through the close ties between business and cultural elites. Genthe’s erudite
standing, gentlemanly manners, and deep understanding of various topics, led to
multiple circles of friends and contacts irrespective of their political and
social views. Upon arrival to San Francisco, he was immediately introduced to
the most influential “top 500” of San Francisco’s elites. His employer, Baroness
Von Schroeder, was the former Mary Donahue, daughter of the very influential
and highly successful iron manufacturer and railroad entrepreneur, Peter
Donahue.[87]
Genthe used the connections and acquaintances made through the numerous parties
and social events hosted by the Von Schroeders in order to establish his own
business and attract clientele. Based on the list of acquaintances that he had
acquired through the von Schroeders, Genthe’s studio (and outside stairs—where
most of his clients preferred to sit) began accommodating the wives and
children of some of the most successful manufacturers and industrialists of the
time. One of his first patrons and avid promoters was the wife of the wealthy
and influential owner of the Crocker National Bank, Mrs. William H. Crocker. Upon
her recommendation, various dignitaries and celebrities, such as Princess Andre
Poniatowski, Mira Edgerly, Alma De Bretteville (the future Mrs. Adolph
Spreckels), would take turns sitting on the staircase in front of Genthe’s
studio and wait to have their portrait taken. Princess Poniatowski, the former
Miss Elizabeth Sperry, was the
daughter and heiress of the flour mill magnate Austin Sperry, owner of the
Sperry Flour Mills in Stockton. Possibly through his contacts with Alma
De Bretteville, Genthe made connections with and took on many members of the
wealthy and influential Spreckels family as sitters. Mira Edgerly (1879-1954),
who was about to become one of the most sought-after miniature portrait
painters and was thus wealthy and financially independent in her own right, would
remain a life-long friend of Genthe. In addition to helping him make connections
with various prominent figures, Edgerly would expose Genthe to various women’s
rights causes. [88]

Simultaneously,
Genthe developed a number of contacts through his membership in the
professional photography club, Camera Craft, as well as his membership in the
Bohemian Club. Whereas the Von Schroeders’ contacts brought in clientele from
the most affluent circles of the San Francisco society, Genthe’s membership and
close friendship with many of the Bohemian Club members, allowed him to connect
with (and photograph) most of the leading politicians, businessmen, performers,
and artists outside the San Francisco circles. This was because the influence
of the Bohemian Club transcended regional boundaries and, as Genthe noted, “scarcely
a man of note who came to San Francisco failed to be introduced into Bohemia.”[89]
Genthe would say of his Bohemian Club experience that it was “the best that a
man could have in those days in San Francisco”[90]
and immediately upon moving to New York, he attempted to establish a similar
type of network and relationships.

Some
of the notable friends and clients from Genthe’s Bohemian days included actors
and actresses such as Minnie Maddern Fiske, Sarah Bernhard, Julia Marlowe, and
E. H. Sothern; dancers, musicians and opera stars such as Anna Pavlova, Ignacy
Paderewski, Antonio Scotti, Nellie Melba, etc. Last but not least, through his
work with the Wave, and later as part of the Bohemian Club, Genthe had
connected and established close contacts with some of the leading writers of
the day, including Jack London, George Sterling, and Will Irwin. Uniquely, all
of these contacts—and Marlowe, Sterling, and Irwin in particular—would be
instrumental in the initial networking and launch of Genthe’s New York career.

Personal
networking was central to Genthe’s career and most of his high-end commissions
came through contacts and connections that he had established over the years.
Although Genthe did not engage in commercial advertisement and promotion of his
work, Genthe’s critical acclaim and renown ensured that any person of stature—be
it a political figure or a famous musician—would request or would be sent to
Genthe’s portrait studio. The enormous success of both his San Francisco and
New York careers was essentially due to the friendships and connections that
Genthe would develop and maintain throughout his life. An example of Genthe’s
style of networking and marketing can be seen in the chart below.

Although
Genthe did not elaborate on the role of the German community for his business
success, his customer registries read like detailed lists of all prominent San
Francisco inhabitants from German descent. It is similarly known that around
1912-1913, future photojournalist Dorothea Lange decided to begin her own
journey in the world of photography as Genthe’s studio assistant, partially
because she could communicate with him in German.[92]

And
all the while, Genthe’s personal values and world outlook, instilled through
centuries of family tradition and rigorous intellectual pursuits, remained an
indelible part of his essence and continued to play a major role throughout his
life. Thus, perhaps even more remarkable than the link to his national origin
was Genthe’s deeply ingrained commitment to upholding the principles of
tolerance and respect for freedom. In his largely anecdotal and seemingly
apolitical autobiography, one can get a clear sense of Genthe’s commitment to
various causes, such as promoting women’s equality and rights. Throughout the
years, he was invited to give lectures and speeches to numerous women’s clubs
and organizations.[93]
There was also his unwavering dedication and meticulous recording of (at the
time) revolutionary and liberating modern dance techniques of Isadora Duncan
and her numerous disciples. And, in 1916, Genthe, along with artists Mario
Korbel and Walter Goldbeck, took to heart the plight Polish war victims and
actively helped pianist and composer Ignacy Paderewski organize and promote a
fundraising campaign for the Polish Victims Relief Fund in New York. The
extraordinary gesture was not lost on Paderewski, who, in his note of
gratitude, simply, but poignantly acknowledged that “sorely as the money is
needed, I appreciate even more deeply than that itself, the sentiment which
prompted you to organize the benefit and give the proceeds to me.”[94]

Arnold Genthe
approached photography as an artist who was trained in the high aesthetic
traditions of nineteenth-century Germany and as a scholar who was keenly aware
of and eager to apply the latest technological innovations to his craft. The
result was a unique style that, at the fin de siècle, amounted to nothing less
than rebellion in a stale, commercially-driven industry, where most
photographers were regarded as charlatans and petty dealers. His break away
from the nineteenth century photo-making techniques, the quick and effective
adoption of the latest technological innovations, and the application of years
of study of the principles of composition, color, and light produced a new
synthesis that would significantly advance photography’s claim as an artistic
genre.

Branding
his product as a new form of artistic enterprise, Genthe’s work would not only
be immensely profitable, but through his unique networking ability, it would
allow him to identify and exploit a number of new venues to be captured and
transmitted through photographic images. And as much as the free spirit of
United States allowed for his creative and entrepreneurial mind to flourish, it
was his family roots and deeply ingrained philosophical and intellectual values
that shaped and informed his artistic outlook, business strategy, and unique
quality of and approach to the photographic image. Thus, although his primary
business activity was in the field of portrait photography, today Genthe
remains well-known for his pioneering work on dance; his photographs of the aftermath of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake; and his early images of the
pre-1906 San Francisco Chinatown. During his prolific thirty-four year career
as a photographer, the classically trained German philologist, sometimes
referred to as the King of Photography and the Super Camera-Man, had an
unprecedented success and most glamorous clientele. The unique way in which he
related to his sitters was perhaps best expressed by his friend, lover, and one
of the persons he photographed the most—Isadora Duncan:

Arnold Genthe is not only a genius but a wizard. He had left
painting for photography, but this photography was most weird and magical. It
is true that he pointed his camera at people and took their photographs, but
the pictures were never photographs of his sitters, but his hypnotic
imagination of them. He has taken many pictures of me, which are not
representations of my physical being, but representations of conditions of my
soul, and one of them is my very soul indeed.[95]

[10] For an in-depth account of the
various aesthetic and philosophical influences on Genthe’s early life, see Toby
Gersten Quitslund, “Arnold Genthe: A pictoral photographer in San Francisco
1895-1911,” Ph.D diss (George Washington University, 1988), 36-42.

[17] In 1904 Genthe had planned to
travel throughout Europe and the Middle East with his brother Siegfried, but
shortly before their meeting, Siegfried was killed in Morocco. Genthe’s last
trip to Germany in 1904 was to settle family deeds; at the time he also shipped
a number of manuscripts and family heirlooms to San Francisco. The latter were
lost to the 1906 earthquake and fire. Genthe travelled to Europe several times
after 1904 but never went back to Germany. See Genthe, As I Remember.

[22] For a comprehensive account on late
nineteenth and early twentieth century San Francisco see William Issel and
Robert Cherny, San Francisco, 1865-1932.
Politics, Power and Urban Development, (Berkeley,
CA: University of California Press, 1986).

[26] Genthe rented his first studio on
Sutter Street at $25/month and with the influx of small Kodak cameras on the
market, the prices for photographic equipment had become relatively affordable.
Also, Genthe’s membership at the Camera Club gave him access to additional
facilities for developing his negatives and making enlargements. See Genthe, As I Remember, 40 and 45.

[37] While the exhibition
brought acclaim, but not revenue, Vance was able to later improve his marketing
strategy and in 1854 opened his First Premium Gallery in San Francisco. His studio
and gallery work positioned him as a leader in California photography for the
next decade. See Birt, Envisioning the
City, 7.

[42] According to Jenkins, these stages
reflect the domination of a particular type of photosensitive carrier-base that
in turn defined operational technological conceptions for both technicians and
businessmen and delineated the boundaries within which technological change
took place. See Reese V. Jenkins, Images and Enterprise (Baltimore, MD: Johns
Hopkins University Press, 1987), 4-5.

[46] The Frickey index of US
manufacturing, named after Edwin Frickey, is an aggregation of a series of
annual indices of production of physical output in the manufacturing industry,
transport, and communication. See Edwin Frickey. Production in the United States 1860-1914 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press, 1942).

[50] Although he was invited to take
part, Genthe did not display his work at the exhibit. Despite his highest
regard for Stieglitz, Genthe also never associated with Photo-Secession or with
Stieglitz’s later turn to “straight” photography. See Quitslund, “Arnold
Genthe: A pictoral photographer,” and Tratchenberg, Classic Essays.

[52] Most
significantly, the photographic image would play a critical role in the establishment
of the system of monitoring and control of migration and immigration: Chinese
migrants to the United States were required to present photographic evidence as
part of their visa application as early as the 1880s. See Anna Pegler-Gordon, In Sight of America (Berkeley, CA: University
of California Press, 2009). In the twentieth century, the use of the photographic
image as a truthful representation and instrument of legality would expand
globally and affect all nationalities. See Adam McKeown, Melancholy Order (New York, NY: Columbia UP, 2011).

[63] A considerable number of items that
were part of the Genthe estate, including any remaining business records, were
misplaced in the transfer to the Library of Congress following his death in
1942.

[65] The second Mrs. Wilson remained a
loyal Genthe customer, ordering various portrait photographs from him throughout
the years: one bill from 1927 shows a charge for $75 for a dozen prints;
another, from 1931, has a “special” rate of $60. Mrs. Wilson was one of the
very few people named in Genthe’s will and upon his death in 1942 she inherited
all negatives from pictures he had taken of her. See Library Of Congress, The
Papers of Edith Bolling Wilson, Box 18, Genthe Folder.

[68] A letter of the transaction with
Frank Rosen is at the NYPL, Lincoln Center for Performing Arts, Manuscripts and
Prints Division, Call Number (S) *MGZMD 107.

[69]Real Price measures a subject (a commodity)
against the cost of a bundle of goods and services that in principle is fixed
though in practice varies over time. Real Value measures a subject (a
commodity) relative to the "value of the household bundle" (VHB). Income Value measures a subject (commodity or project)
against a specific wage or more-general income, such as the average wage rate
or per capita GDP. See MeasuringWorth (accessed January 26, 2014).

[71] After 1917, Alfred Stieglitz and
many of the Secessionists moved away from the pictoral, soft-touch method and
began advocating for “straight”photography.
As Genthe never developed consistent and exclusive associations with any of the
photographic movements of the early twentieth century, different critics have
seen his work as representative of multiple techniques—pictoral, straight, and
even social photography. (for extensive discussion see Quitslund, “Arnold
Genthe: A pictoral photographer”). Although Genthe’s work was never
discredited, his product lost its early appeal and profitability toward the end
of his life.

[78] Genthe had spent
considerable time on the subject in his youth, particularly as developed in the
correspondence between Hegel and Goethe. See Quitslund, “Arnold Genthe: A pictoral photographer” and
Footnote 3.

[79] The autochrome process, patented by
Auguste and Louis Lumiere in 1903, produces a positive color image on a glass
plate to be viewed either by projection in a stereopticon or by reflected
light. Alfred Stieglitz began exhibiting autochromes in New York as
early as 1907.

[85] For a more extensive list of
publications by Genthe, see Quitslund, “Arnold Genthe: A pictoral
photographer,” 293-4. For a list of articles and op-ed pieces that Genthe
published in the New York Times, see James
C. A. Kaufmann, “Arnold Genthe: Gentleman Photographer,” Image 20, no. 3-4 (1977), 10.

[87] Among his numerous
ventures, Donahue was a founder of the Union Iron Works, the Southern Pacific,
and the Hibernia Savings and Loan Society (Quitslund, “Arnold Genthe: A pictoral
photographer,” 54-55 and Issel and Cherny, San Francisco,
27).

Volume

Themes

Regions

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